Elyse Walker made a bet in 1999: that residents of Pacific Palisades and Brentwood would rather shop for designer fashions in their neighborhood than drive to Beverly Hills.
Her eponymous boutique, initially just 800 square feet, became the cornerstone of a retail empire that now stretches from Tribeca to Newport Beach, drawing celebrities like Jennifer Garner and Kate Hudson. It also propelled a renewal of downtown Palisades, with new restaurants and boutiques moving in.
That all changed on Jan. 7, when the Palisades fire leveled Walker’s flagship store and thousands of other homes and businesses.
A man rides a scooter past a burning business in Palisades Village on Jan. 8.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
On Wednesday, Walker proudly announced her next bet on the neighborhood where she raised her two sons.
In downtown Palisades, she and developer Rick Caruso revealed that Caruso’s Palisades Village shopping center will reopen in mid-2026 and that her flagship store, elysewalker, will become its newest marquee tenant.
“I hope that this serves as the catalyst for other retailers and brands and big businesses and small businesses to come back to the Palisades, Malibu, Altadena and Pasadena,” Walker said in an interview. “Twenty-five years ago, we planted seeds in this community, and now we are doing it again.”
Caruso told The Times that later this year, he plans to resume the Palisades Village annual Christmas tree and menorah lighting. He said he will also underwrite the cost of new landscaping and sidewalks in the streets around the shopping center.
The goal, he said, is to create a visible anchor to a town in the midst of a massive recovery and to accelerate the return of a vibrant, bustling community.
“This is a really big deal,” Caruso said. “When a retailer like Elyse opens a store in a community, that’s a powerful voice of confidence that there’s a bright future here. I really do believe with her and our organization, the rebirth of the Palisades is going to be unstoppable.”
The news came during a frustrating and uncertain period as Palisades residents recover from the devastation of the wildfire and grapple with the mass displacement of their community. Thousands have relocated to disparate parts of Southern California or are scattered across the U.S.
“The fact that we have this hub in the middle of town is a ray of hope that we can get back sooner,” said Chris Feil, a Palisades native who moved six times after the fire before settling in a rental in Manhattan Beach. His wife, Mia Feil, said she gets emotional thinking of what was lost in the blaze. The couple is now in the early stages of rebuilding.
“We’re all sort of traumatized by the loss of our community,” she said, listing the impromptu gathering at restaurants, Saturday baseball games, the annual Christmas tree lighting and the Fourth of July parade. “Having all those things back is truly the lifeline and joy in the neighborhood — that’s what makes the Palisades so special. It’s a small town in a big city.”
Walker chose to open her shop on Antioch Street more than 25 years ago so that she could easily walk to her sons’ school.
“We were between three churches, two coffee shops and five schools — it had nothing to do with co-tenancy yet,” Walker said. “We just knew this was a place where people would be walking around.”
Her shop drew well-heeled women from across the region, and she expanded the store’s footprint six times, reaching nearly 6,500 square feet. Her store generated $5,000 per square foot in sales — among the highest in American multi-brand retail. She developed a team of private shoppers and stylists that visited clients in their homes for curated fashions.
Along the way, Walker became an ambassador of sorts to would-be retailers and business owners in the Palisades, like Cafe Vida, Lemon Nails, and Caruso’s Palisades Village, which opened in 2018 and brought a movie theater, Erewhon and Chanel.
“People who live in the Palisades don’t want to leave. It’s a magical place — they nestle into the mountains right by the ocean,” Walker said.
On Jan. 7, Caruso relied on a fleet of private firefighters to prevent the flames from destroying Palisades Village and some nearby properties.
But Walker’s shop was reduced to rubble, the merchandise incinerated by the inferno.
The store had about 30 employees, and Walker said she has been in “sink or swim mode,” trying to keep her staff employed, serve local customers through her shops in Calabasas and Newport Beach and trudge through the arduous task of dealing with insurance.
“The first thing I said to my team: there’s no four walls that can define me, and there’s no four walls that define the magic,” she said.
She recalled the couples who met in the store, the women who learned they were pregnant there, and the local resident whose 3-year-old son had died and who needed a dress for the funeral.
“So much happened in the dressing room of that store, and none of that is gone — those relationships and friendships and trust are still there,” Walker said.
With Walker’s shop opening inside Palisades Village in the spring or summer of 2026, and with new trees, streetscapes and upgraded sidewalks coming to the downtown, Caruso said he hopes the area will be a cradle of redevelopment and a beacon for those vacillating about rebuilding.
“Hopefully, that spurs other landlords to invest in their buildings and spurs other retailers to open up,” he said.
